Home cinema – arrangement of equipment, ways to connect and configure it

Home cinema

A wide step of technological progress narrowed the width of the TVs to incredible sizes, minimized the dimensions of acoustics and controls for equipment designed for high-quality viewing of films. The phrase “home theater” has ceased to frighten even the owners of small-sized apartments by the immense size. Consumers have the opportunity to buy a complete set or separately all components. The only question is in what sequence you need to connect and correctly configure your home theater with your own hands, so that the pleasure of viewing becomes truly real.

Content

• Options and layout
• How to properly connect all the components of the cinema?

• We connect the home theater to the TV
• Way to connect to a computer

Proper setup of equipment for watching movies

Options and layout

The phrase “home theater” may include:

• a complete set consisting of video transmission means (i.e., a TV or a widescreen projector), a speaker system and a DVD player;
• abbreviated set of DVD player and acoustic equipment.

The start of the cinema organization is the choice of a suitable room or the allocation of part of it. Before you connect the home theater to the TV, you need to find the “right” place for each technical unit.

Note. It is necessary to arrange the equipment so that the screen is at the level of the eyes of seated people, and the audience is in the center of the acoustic equipment located around them.

How to install a home theater is a task whose solution depends on the area of ​​the room and the formation of optimal comfort from the point of view of users. Since flat-screen TVs do not take up useful space, the main catch is the arrangement of acoustics. Speakers can be hung on the wall with brackets, hoisted on special racks or placed directly on the floor. You can give preference to compact models. However, several speakers are mounted in the floor options, which improves sound transmission. The owner will have to decide what is more important for him.

Owners of small apartments recommend cinemas with an acoustic system consisting of five 5.1 speakers. Passionate movie fans in large rooms can install a cinema with 6 or 7 speakers (6.1 and 7.1) with more surround sound. Again, accounting: for equipment 6.1 or 7.1 standard decoders are not enough, players with DTS ES and Dolby Digital EX will be needed. It’s great if the player is also equipped with devices for reading various video and audio formats, USB ports for viewing and listening to materials from flash drives and hard drives.

On the placement of the DVD-player, subwoofer, Blu-ray-player and the control center of the cinema – the receiver, usually we are not talking. They are traditionally installed under a TV suspended on a wall or mounted on a special “chest of drawers” ​​with compartments for all equipment.

We figured out how to properly install a home theater, placed columns according to calculated points, we can move on.

How to properly connect all the components of the cinema?

Regardless of the layout and number of equipment for home cinema fans, all components are connected to the receiver. It controls the entire set of video equipment and supplies power to speakers, receives and transmits radio signals. A tuner, power amplification devices, preamps, multi-channel audio decoders, and a command processing system are mounted in the receiver. It focuses on the connection scheme of a home theater, it is the center for connecting all the equipment into a single, harmoniously functioning “organism”.

We connect the home theater to the TV

For this work, the contractor will need a cable, the choice of which depends on the type of connectors on the TV and on the receiver. According to what you need to purchase a cable with a standard composite connector or with an RGB connector, or with an HDMI input, or with a device for connecting S-video. Proper connection of a home theater will also require the inclusion of a surge protector in the chain.

Suppose that the connectors on the receiver and on the TV are composite, the corresponding cable is purchased and you have everything in your hands to connect your home theater to the TV without problems. Proceed:

• Connect the yellow plug to the OUT connector located on the rear panel of the receiver, and connect the plug located on the opposite end to the IN connector of the LCD, LED or plasma TV.

By analogy, the S-Video cable is connected. The equipment is connected via the RGB cable by installing the blue, red and green plugs in the corresponding inputs. It is easy to cope with connecting an HDMI cable with compact “combs” for high-definition TVs, focusing on the shape of the plugs and the markings on most of them.

• We connect the front, rear acoustic equipment and the center speaker.

The center speaker can be positioned above or below the TV. Rear speakers should be rotated towards movie fans 45º.

• Under the black and red cover of the receiver on its rear panel, there are holes for connecting wires. Paste according to color.
• Blu-ray and / or DVD players are connected via jacks with a color scheme.
• The sound-optimizing subwoofer is connected with the supplied cable to the OUT jack of the receiver.
• We connect the audio equipment to the central device connector by inserting the plugs into the player’s outputs, available on the left and on the right.

To complete the connection of home cinemas, install the plugs of all the electrical cords into the filter and connect it to the outlet.

Way to connect to a computer

For connection, a special cable is used, at one end of which a plug is of the “tulip” type, and at the other end is a mini-jack input device. Connecting a home theater to a computer through the green port.

• Insert the mini-jack into the system unit, insert the tulip connector into the DVD player. With this connection scheme, the player performs the function of a sound amplifier, which is reproduced in the format selected by the host (i.e. 5.1 or 6.1, etc.). It is to him that we connect speakers and a passive subwoofer.
• Set up a sound card. It is possible that to connect a cinema with six speakers you will need to install 6CH Speaker, for seven speakers, you may also need to set a special parameter. Map tuning consists in balancing sound characteristics.
• We customize the video card based on the preferences of the owners. A video card may support two or more screens.

Proper setup of equipment for watching movies

After installing and connecting all the components, you need to figure out how to set up your home theater, then perform all the steps in sequence. To make the settings, the receiver’s OSD is used; adjustment is easier to do using the remote control.

• We adjust the bass in the front and rear speakers, choosing the “Small” mode for compact speaker models, the “Large” mode for large equipment.
• To set up the center speaker, they most often prefer to set the mode to “Normal”. The large speaker will deliver excellent sound in “Wide” mode..
• If you could not arrange the columns in an arc, you will need to delay the signal from the central speaker, since it is located farther than the rear and front equipment. The calculation is simple: every 30 cm difference in distance will require a delay of 1 millisecond.
• Adjust the volume levels, for which you can set the priority level on the receiver or on each individual channel.
• Complete the final setup by including a fragment of a perfectly recorded movie.

In addition to those listed for different models of cinemas for home cinema fans, there may be other settings, for familiarization with which you need to read the manufacturer’s instructions.
Having learned about how to properly organize a cinema and how to properly connect a home theater, anyone will cope with the task. “Tin-solder”, it’s definitely not necessary to invent anything. But, knowing the principles of connection and settings, the simplest failures can be detected and fixed independently, and even save a lot on calling the wizard.